


As It Relates

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For @mianarazta, who gave me the prompt of:  Just mainly revolving around Nahele being gay and coming to terms with it and finally telling Steve and maybe his reaction? And then maybe Steve tells Danny and either Danny comes out too when he realizes Steve's cool with it or he helps Steve realize that there's nothing wrong with it, or Steve himself realizes his feelings for Danny?</p><p>So, this is more about the second half of that.  Sorry, I don't feel like I know Nahele well enough to write him, so I concentrated on the reactionary part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It Relates

**Author's Note:**

> MAN am I shit at titles. I didn't know what to call it so I just called it As It Relates as in as it relates to you and me. I dunno. Also this is just a one off, prompt response. No plans to continue.

“Gay?”

Steve nods, leaning back in his chair.  “Yeah, but I talked to him, I think it’ll be alright.”

Danny nods, looking to at the choppy waters as he drinks his beer.  “Well good for him, figuring it out so early.”

“What?”

Danny looks over at Steve’s perplexed expression.  “What, what?”

“Good,” Steve asks.  “I tell you Nahele thinks he’s gay and you say good for him?”

Danny frowns.  “For… figuring it out this early, yeah.  Save himself a few years of confusion.”

Steve shakes his head.  “What are you--”

“When you said you talked to him,” Danny says, leaning forward and putting his beer down.  “What did you mean?”

“I talked to him, ya know,” Steve says, waving a hand.  “Told him that’s not something he wants to--”

“Woah.”

“-- choose, it’s not a decision to take lightly, not an easy… life.”  Steve blinks.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Ho-kay, choose,” Danny says, nodding slowly and tilting his head to the side, chewing silently on the hunk of gum in his mouth.  “Wow.  Alright then.”

Steve sighs and scrubs his face.  “Danny just spit it out.”

“What, no, I didn’t say anything,” Danny says, spreading his hands.  “I just thought, ya know, this kid’s kinda been through enough, maybe you wouldn’t wanna shove him back in the closet the very second he screws up the courage to poke his head out.”

“Shove, who said shove,” Steve says, leaning forward.  “Danny, what are you talking about?”

Danny sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.  “I’m saying it ain’t that easy to come out to someone that’s as important to you as you are to that kid,” Danny says quietly.  “I’m sure he was hoping for some understanding, not a good talking to.”

“It’s not like I fussed at him, Danny, I just explained that his life would be so much easier--”

“If he chose to not be who he is, sure,” Danny says, nodding.  “Lemme just…”  He clears his throat.  “For your information, if when I told my Dad I was into guys, he said something like that to me?  I probably still wouldn’t be talking to him.”

“If when you…”  Steve paused, his hand freezing in the air.  “When you.”

“Told my Dad I was gay,” Danny says, nodding.  “Didn’t know what bi was back then, babe, didn’t know you could be into both.  Just knew I wanted Tommy in the same way I was supposed to want Tommy’s sister.”

Steve frowns, shaking his head.  “Danny… Danny you’re saying--" 

Danny laughs.  “Who _are_ you, are you new?  I’m bi, Steve, am I speaking English, how do you not know this?”

Steve throws his hands out.  “How do I not know… Danny you’ve never told me this before!”

“Listen,” Danny says, crossing his legs and turning his head to face Steve.  “I realize we’ve never put this thing between us to words but uh… you’re not really this blind to yourself are you?”

“Thing between us,” Steve asks, motioning between them.  “What thing between--”

“The spark, the attraction, the way you look at me after two beers when it’s dusk and starting to cool off for the evening, like maybe you wanna shove me up against the wall and kiss me,” Danny says, arching an eyebrow. “That thing.”

Steve reaches up and scrubs at his face.  “Danny… what?”

“You know I’ve seen you right?  Looking at my ass?  Lick your lips when you’re talking to me, the way your pupils dilate?  Please tell me you’re not this obtuse.”  Danny shakes his head.  “Steve, you know that stirring in your pants when you watch me walk away?  That’s you wanting me.”

Steve’s eyebrows punch together.  “Okay, I don’t know what you’re pulling here, Danny, there’s no…  There’s no us, there’s no spark, there’s no…  I don’t look at your _ass_ , Danny!”

Danny stands up and gestures at him.  “Get up.”

Steve looks up at him, frowning.  “What?”

“Don’t what me again, Steven, stand the fuck up,” Danny yells, throwing his hands out.  “Up, up, stand up!”

Steve puts his beer down and stands slowly, licking the remnants of beer off his lips.  “Why am I standing?”

“I wasn’t going to do this,” Danny says, stepping closer to Steve.  “I was going to just let it go.  Let it be.”  He grabs the front of Steve’s shirt and pulls him forward.  Steve tries to step back but Danny just holds on.  “I just figured, it is what it is, I can’t make this better for you if you won’t even acknowledge…”  He meets Steve’s eyes and shakes his head sadly.  “That our friendship was the important part, and it still is, but Steve?  This is more important than even our friendship.”

Steve frowns down at him.  “Danny, what are you--”

Danny interrupts him by kissing him, pressing his lips not that gently to Steve’s and holding on as Steve freezes and then tries to jerk away.  Snakes a hand behind Steve’s neck and puts gentle pressure, a massaging kind of caress until Steve lets out an audible grunt and then stills.  Pulls back slightly and then smiles as Steve is the one to lean forward, collide their lips together again, opens his mouth and moans into Danny’s mouth as his hands come up to Danny’s hips and crush him to him when their tongues slide together.

“Feel that?  What that was?  That’s you not being 100% straight Steven.”  Danny pulls back and rests his forehead against Steve’s so Steve can’t reach him with his lips again.   “Now tell me that didn’t feel 100% real.  Right.”

Steve takes a shuddering breath in.  “I didn’t…  Danny, I never consciously…”

“You do not get to push off your fucked up, brainwashed, homophobic Navy mentality on that kid, babe,” Danny says gently, softly. “I’ll put up with you denying us this, because I love you.  But I won’t put up with that.”

Steve’s fingers twitch on Danny’s hips, his eyes focusing on Danny’s lips.  “Is that what I’m doing?”

“You are so fucked in the head, babe,” Danny says, smiling fondly up at him and reaching up to brush a thumb over Steve’s cheek.  “You don’t mean to be, and you have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know, but yeah.  Yeah, that’s what you did.  Don’t be that guy, huh.  You don’t wanna be that guy.”

“That guy,” Steve questions.

“The guy that makes Nahele feel like after all he’s gone through, after being homeless, after his piece of shit father, after the hell he’s gone through, like he can’t be what he is.  Like what he is isn’t okay,” Danny says, stepping back.  

Steve looks away and stuffs his hands in his back pockets, breathing in through his nose and exhaling loudly.  “Yeah,” he says finally and nodding.  “Yeah, I don’t wanna…”  He looks back at Danny.  “I don’t want to be another thing in that kid’s life that makes him feel like shit.”

“I know you don’t,” Danny says, smiling and sitting back down, reaching over to grab his beer.  “Sit down.  Relax.”

Steve does sit, but his posture is stiff, and he won’t look at Danny.  “Do you really think I’m brainwashed?”

Danny takes a few sips of beer and stretches his legs out.  “I think we accept what we’re told to accept.  I think we’re brought up with what’s normal, and we’re taught to be that.  Brainwashed or just predispositioned, I don’t know, but yeah.  I think you were brought up with a very straight-lined, narrow way of thinking.  And not given much opportunity to rail against it.  To fight it.  To question it.”

They sit in silence for a few moments and Steve finally settles back against the chair and they watch the sun set.  Danny closes his eyes and feels a peace he hasn’t felt in actually a really long time because he’s been holding this back for so damn long.  It’s amazing to finally let it out, even if nothing at all comes of it.

“How did you know,” Steve asks finally, making Danny’s eyes snap open.  “How I felt about you?  I didn’t even know.”

Danny grins.  “Are you kidding me?  With this ass, even straight boys want me.”

Steve lets out a startled laugh.  “Danny.”  He rolls his eyes and looks down at his beer.  “Seriously.”

“You look at me,” Danny says quietly.  

“I look at everybody,” Steve says.

Danny shakes his head.  “Just.  It’s the _way_ you look at me.”  He looks over at Steve and doesn’t hide the fondness at all, doesn’t hide the way he feels at all, doesn’t temper it, doesn’t put annoyance or amusement on top of it.  Just looks at him, and says it all with his eyes.  “The way I’m looking at you right now.”

Steve honestly looks gobsmacked.  “Danny.”

“I know,” Danny says, nodding and looking back out at the lasting pink hues of the setting sun in the sky.

“But, Danny.”

“Relax,” Danny says, looking back over at him.  “Just calm down.”

“I didn’t.  I don’t know if.”  Steve blinks, hands clutching his beer tightly.  “Danny.”

Danny laughs.  “I’m not expecting you to roll over and wake up okay with being gay, Steve,” he says gently.  “Or bi, or curious, or whatever makes that horrified, about to puke expression leave your face.”  He shrugs.  “I was just looking out for the kid.”

Steve swallows and looks away.  “I don’t…  I don’t even know what to say next.”

“Just relax,” Danny says, studying his profile.  “Drink your beer, unwind, think about letting Nahele know that you care about him regardless, and hey.”  He pokes Steve in the arm and holds out his beer bottle.  “We’re fine, me and you.  Okay?  We’re square.”

Steve looks down at Danny’s outstretched beer but stops just short of tapping it with his own.  “We are?”

“We’re good,” Danny reaffirms.

“Okay,” Steve says, nodding and then tapping Danny’s beer with his own.  “Okay.”

They settle into an amiable silence until Danny smirks to himself and tilts his head lazily to look back at Steve.  “By the way?  That gum you’re chewing?"

“Yeah, I was thinking this was yours,” Steve says, smiling slightly and looking down.  “Spearmint and beer, who knew.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr here under [@lovethesnark](http://lovethesnark.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Fanfiction Website  
> MOST of my fic is not on AO3, though all of my H5O and beyond is as AO3 didn't exist yet and it was too much to archive. It can be found on my website at [LoveTheSnark.com](http://www.lovethesnark.com).


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